I Hate Your Lies, Tequila Commercials

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No one is naïve enough to believe that advertising is honest. If someone is trying to get your money from you, chances are they’re lying to some extent, if not outright. Obviously the Draper-esque ad executive working for KFC doesn’t want you to know that the new boneless chicken actually comes from freak chickens that Yum! Corp scientists genetically engineered to be born without bones. I mean, even if America and I saw pictures of the suffering feathery blobs, with their cold black eyes begging for a death they have no concept of, we’d still eat them, because food, and KFC knows that, but it’s all better left unsaid. All of this is no different than the rush chair telling that sweet, fresh-faced incoming freshman, “We have a strict no hazing policy.” They’re being told what they need to hear. We all are.

Hell, even charities lie. Kony 2012 donations didn’t go to saving poor African children from their miserable lives as child soldiers. That money went to new office space and the legal fees of a public masturbator. Seemingly noble charities like Mothers Against Drunk Driving are full of shit too. MADD spends TWO THIRDS of its budget on salaries; only a third goes to charitable work and victim services. More like Mothers Against Getting Real Jobs, amiright?? Totally justifies driving drunk, you guys (not really). If you think about it though, that thirty million they spend on paying employees could buy a lot of cab rides, or better yet, a lot of sandwiches to hand out at bars to soak up the alcohol in all those drunk bodies.

“I’ll take a turkey and salami on ciabatta, ma’am. Make it a large, I have to drop a few people off. YES I WANT CHEESE!”

Really, the only people who are honest with you when taking your money are muggers. Give them your wallet or they’ll stab you, pretty cut and dried.

All of that is to say that I’m usually not surprised, and certainly not outraged, when I see an advertisement that is totally and completely full of shit. An Arby’s commercial portraying its employees as something other than mouth breathers doesn’t bother me. I’m well aware that in reality some lumpy, slack jawed man with a dirt ‘stache is going to be the one pouring the nacho cheese on my Beef ‘N Cheddar, and of course getting a fair amount on his shirt.

Still, I’ve been watching the NBA playoffs a lot these past few weeks, and one series of commercials that are incessantly popping up are the Michael Imperioli 1800 Tequila ads. For whatever reason, they piss me off, and they aren’t even new. I hate their vibe. There is no such thing as a classy tequila. I don’t care if you’re drinking Patron, 1800, or Pepe Julio’s Tijuana Gutter Batch #7, the end result of drinking tequila is going to be exactly the same. You’re going to blackout, hard and fast. Tequila cares not for your alcohol tolerance. Tequila makes all men equal, and by equal I mean quivering, tortured, piles of sadness, not unlike Yum!’s genetically engineered boneless chickens.

Of course, the whole pile of sadness thing happens at the end of the night. Before your body starts shutting itself down, announcing to your organs, “This is it guys! We’re callin’ it a life! I don’t know what he’s putting in us but he clearly wants to die,” you basically become a monster. You offend people, you burn bridges, figuratively and literally, if you have a girlfriend you might not anymore, and if you’re childless, you might not be anymore. At no point, ever, do you act classy while drinking tequila. Jimmy Buffett didn’t make a living singing about being a gentleman. He sang about losing his shoes, forgetting what time it was, not caring about what time it was so that he could justify drinking more tequila, and presumably fathering about two dozen bastard island children. And cheeseburgers. That’s tequila in a nutshell.

The whole bottle service vibe 1800 is going for goes beyond your typical advertising stretch and into sheer lunacy. You don’t need to lie to me that much 1800, and if you want people to start ordering your product for bottle service, pay someone to put it in a rap video. Don’t sit there and have a guy from The Sopranos complain about the good old days while drinking tequila. That doesn’t even make sense. What good old days? If you drink tequila, you don’t remember the good old days. You don’t remember anything. The good old days were probably before you were drinking tequila, because at the present you’re in a holding cell while a stripper who’s missing a finger is accusing you of some pretty terrible things.

I like tequila. It’s a great shot, and I’ll drink a gallon of margaritas any time, any place. Not to mention tequila is what makes Texas Tea so deadly and delicious. I’m just tired of listening to an Italian guy try to tell me about the best Mexican tequila and reminisce about things that never happened. If only there were an 1800 outtake reel of Michael Imperioli puking his balls up in between takes.

Rob Fox (né Bacon) is Director of Video Content and a Senior Writer for Total Frat Move, Rowdy Gentleman, and Post Grad Problems. He is a graduate, without honors, from the University of Missouri. Rob is originally from St. Louis, and currently lives in Austin, Texas. He still has not admitted to his family what he does for a living, and is prone to having wet nightmares ever since losing his virginity in a haunted house. Email: rob@grandex.co